Rebuild Bluebird Farm After Hurricane Helene's Impact

Bluebird Farm was underwater physically during Hurricane Helene, please consider helping us from going under financially. William and I (Marie) have managed our farm near Morganton in Western North Carolina through some terrible natural disasters, floods, insects, and fungal diseases over the past 15 years, and we’ve prepared and adapted the farm for variable weather every step of the way.

We could not have prepared for the catastrophic level of flooding and wind from Hurricane Helene. The water just came down from the mountains in all directions and none of our preparation could withstand the power of water and wind.

95% of all of our vegetables are gone.

Winter is coming and it is too late to plant more crops.

Fall is the time of year when we see the bounty of a year’s sweat and endurance and we finally pay off the year’s investment of growing vegetables. That is all gone. In August we plant into hoophouses and greenhouses for months of deep winter bounty. That is all gone. All of our animals are safe in winter barn areas, but we need to purchase materials and make extensive repairs to shelters and fencing to get them back onto pasture.

Please consider giving any amount to help keep us going through the coming weeks and months. William and I want to be transparent about the amount of resources that are going to be needed to get the farm going again. We will be at the Saturday Charlotte Regional Farmers’ Market 8-1pm with pork and eggs again starting October 5th, good Lord willin’ and the creek don’t rise.

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Any amount given will be the funds that will pay our employees, pay us (we are full time farmers and do not have off farm jobs,) pay back our annual startup debts/costs, and help keep the farm alive for the next 6 months until next spring. We also have months of work to clean up and repair the farm. There are extensive repairs requiring heavy machinery and gravel to roads and fences and earthen flood mitigation berms around our fields, clean out of crops and trellis that are contaminated by dirty floodwater, dumpster rental, structure and roof repairs to barns, irrigation repairs and replacement, tree removal from structures and fields, replacement of precious fertile compost that was washed away from our fields.